


can't take my eyes off of you

by very_tired_child



Series: the three-moment playlist [1]
Category: Sam & Max (Comics), The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, accidental pining, and then immediately passed out and forgot about it, canon typical dumb kids, gay realizations, i wrote it in the middle of the night in an adhd-fueled burst of inspiration, max is kind of a jerk but he's getting better, sam and max are kids, takes place before canon content, this is so short im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29734992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/very_tired_child/pseuds/very_tired_child
Summary: It's a hot summer night, and Max is very distracted.
Relationships: Max/Sam (Sam & Max)
Series: the three-moment playlist [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189859
Comments: 6
Kudos: 93





	can't take my eyes off of you

**Author's Note:**

> This is highkey inspired by this fanart and if you want the full experience I highly recommend listening to the song while you read  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CLsKsCkD9Cc/

It’s a remarkably hot night.

Max knows this should be a given, considering it’s summer and he’s half-buried in blanket and fur, but it still surprises him. The air from the open window is cool, he can feel it on him, but for some reason he’s sweating. It’s annoying, but he doesn’t feel like doing anything about it. Even though it’d be funny, he doesn’t wanna bother Sam.

Who, speaking of which, doesn’t seem to be bothered at all. The little pup is fast asleep, nuzzling into his pillow and kicking softly at Max’s legs as he chases imaginary criminals. At his age he doesn’t snore very loud, but Max’s ears still pick it up more easily than other kids do, and it bothers him less than he says it does. The sound worms its way through his eardrums and scratches against his brain like sandpaper smoothing wood. It’s become a safe sound for him. 

But that’s besides the point. The point is, it’s a miracle Sam isn’t sweating buckets. He’s further away from the window than Max is, and none of the cool air could possibly be hitting him. If he’d just slept on his bed instead of insisting on sharing the floor with Max, he thinks, Sam would be a lot more comfortable. That’s the thing with dogs, he figures, always so annoyingly clingy and nice. And soft. 

Max fidgets. He’d take off the blanket if he could, but Sam’s got his half of it in a vice grip and would definitely wake up if he felt it shift too much. It’s just as well, anyway. For some reason, his face feels like the hottest part of him now, and he can’t for the life of him figure out why.

So he tries to focus on something. Just one thing, anything in the room, that he can stare at. He’s long since found out during his and Sam’s imaginary stakeouts that staying in one place and staring without being able to talk bores him to sleep. It’s funny, he never really realized how much he valued talking to Sam until he had to stay quiet. It was fun trying to steal his attention away from the pretend criminals by cracking jokes and pestering him, just to see his reactions. Max half-wonders if they’ll play cops again tomorrow, just so he can get Sam jokingly mad enough to grab his hand and scold him to be quiet, he’s always cute when he’s mad --

Damn, his face is annoyingly warm. What the hell? 

He’s really tempted now to just rip the blanket off of them, but his pint-sized conscience tells him no. That’d just wake Sam up, and he’d probably make a joke about being awake to fight crime but he’d definitely be too tired and it’d just be depressing. He likes Sam too much to let him make a fool of himself because of him. And anyway, he’s put up with a lot of Max’s crap today, doesn’t he deserve the rest? Look at him, sleeping all soundly like a little baby. It’s almost cute how his eyebrows scrunch up when he’s dreaming about fighting crime, and

No, wait, hang on a minute. Rewind.

_He likes Sam too much to let him make a fool of himself_

_He likes Sam too much_

_He likes --_

Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding. 

Max is suddenly hyper-aware of how warm his face is, and it really sinks in. 

He doesn’t particularly care that it’s a boy he likes, he’s long since come to terms with the fact that girls just didn’t interest him (though he’s always attributed that to his love of violence so the adults don’t give him weird looks). 

No, it’s the fact that his first actual crush is Sam, of all people. That dumb dog who won’t shut up about nerdy stuff and old black-and-white crime flicks, whos first reaction when Max gave him a shirt with his own face on it in an attempt to weird him out was to put it on and wear it regularly. Sam, who puts up with Max’s jokes at his expense and builds model cars for them to play in and invites him to sleepovers and is so nice even though he’s always getting bullied, so Max has to step in. Sam, his first and only friend. Sam.

But on the plus side, Max can stare at him and it won’t be weird because he’ll have a reason. He can just say it’s because of his crush and not because he’s a freak, which he is, but that excuse is getting old.

He wonders, if he stares at Sam a lot, whether he’ll notice. How long would it be, if he doesn’t bother to hide it, until Sam confronts Max about it? Would that be awkward? Probably, but also probably very funny. 

Oh well. If it doesn’t resolve itself he’ll just confess at Prom when he’s a teenager. That’d be super romantic and cool.

For now though, Max thinks, he’s just gonna stare at Sam. It feels a lot more mushy now that he knows he’s got a crush, and he’s equal parts disgusted and amazed. It makes a lot more sense now why it’s so hard to look away.

As Max drifts off to sleep, he thinks, _I can’t believe I like you, Sam._

_Kinda makes me wanna punch you._


End file.
